The "Means of Grace" for Righteous Living

 

Jesus impresses me. Peace often evades me, but Jesus remained steady. Wisdom does not always come from my mouth, but Jesus shut down the arguments of lawyers. Love leaps from my mouth without ever engaging my heart, but Jesus' actions spoke louder than both.

I find within me a desire to live like Jesus, but I also "see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind..." (ESV, Rom. 7:21-25). It appears nearly impossible to live like Jesus, yet I know that He says, "...he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do..." (NASB, John 14:12). Even greater works!

I want to describe in this brief article how I have begun to answer the question: How do we practically live like Jesus? The answer may provide great freedom to many of you who have desired for years to apply principles, but have not known how. For others, the answer may challenge you, as it has myself, to step into a new dimension of following Christ.

As I asked Holy Spirit to begin teaching me how to practically live like Jesus, I felt Him prompting me to begin reading Dallas Willard's book, The Spirit of the Disciplines. In the first chapter of the book, Willard points out how interesting teenage baseball players are to watch. It does not take much to notice if they have a favorite star player or not. Those who do may hold their bat high in the air just as a professional they admire. Or they might dive head-first into second base because they saw it done on TV.

However, Willard points out that if the admiring teen only attempts to mimic the star's performance and not his practice, then the results will not look like the professional's results. If the teen trains like the professional, he has a better chance of performing like the professional. Things began to click as I realized that in order to perform like Jesus under life's pressures, I must practice like Jesus in the spiritual disciplines He practiced.

Instead of saying "spiritual disciplines," John Wesley would use the phrase "means of grace" to say that practices such as meditation, prayer, Bible reading and joining with the community of saints actually help us find the "means of grace" for righteous living.

Richard J. Foster, in his book, Celebration of Discipline, uses a profound analogy to describe the "means of grace" that helps bring this home. Foster explains that the farmer may diligently plow, water and care for his crops, but at some point, the farmer must back away from the crops and allow mother nature to produce the fruit. The farmer simply cannot make the crops grow.

In the same way, the means of grace, or spiritual disciplines, serve as tools in our hands as a farmer uses tools for his field. Plowing the heart's bitterness with forgiveness, watering with a healthy dose of the Word, we find our lives engaging in a relationship with God.

The life engaged in relationship with God produces the proper conditions for God to yield the highest amount of fruit possible. Jesus makes the same conclusion when He instructs, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (NASB, John 15:5). The spiritual disciplines help us to abide, or remain, in Jesus so that His life within us can transform the way we live in the world.

And we have much reason to desire His life within us transforming the way we live. He had peace and grace, love and mercy, wisdom and understanding. Like the baseball player practicing for the performance or the farmer conditioning the fields for harvest, the spiritual disciplines position us to maintain constant connection with heaven-disciplines prepare our hearts for a rich harvest of spiritual fruit.

Do you find yourself growing weary? Does joy seem to evade you? Can you not seem to find peace in your relationships with others? You may be admiring the performance of Christ without employing the practice of Christ.

Indeed, He promises to those who abide in Him "that [their] joy may be made full" (John 15:11). Of course storms may come and joy may seem a great stretch away, but maintaining connection with the Father provided Jesus with great peace in the storm and constant joy through the trials (Matt. 8:18-27; John 17:13).

Imagine with me a faith community that truly abides in Jesus. We would grow deep roots and bear great fruit! We would certainly know God and make God known. The peace of Christ would remain our stabling anchor, holding us steady through any storm or drought.

Now, may Christ "dwell in [our] hearts through faith" that we may be "rooted and grounded in love" and "able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled up to all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:17-19).

You can find out more about the means of grace, or spiritual disciplines, from these sources:

• The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

• Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster

• By searching online for John Wesley's sermon notes on "The Means of Grace"

 

Grace and Peace,

Tim Turner
Young Adult Ministry
Wesley UMC Beaumont